Giordano Bruno (1548 - February 17, 1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings. Bruno also wrote on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. He is remembered for his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism (the view that the Universe (or Nature) and God (or divinity) are identical, Pantheists do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god). Many regard him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas.